By nerfs OR buffs. She's never changed at all, so why is she, according to some people, OP now?

Because most people only listen to streams for all their data. Initially it was because Widow could oneshot her with a bodyshot, and quickscope everyone else so well you couldn't touch her. Now that nerfs hit Widow, and all the other DPS favorites, people are discovering just how much damage she does and how much skill it takes just to tag her.

She's harder to follow than Genji, and most projectile heroes can't touch her. She's gonna require a nerf soon, but it'll be hard with her kit the way it is.

By nerfs OR buffs. She's never changed at all, so why is she, according to some people, OP now?

Because most people only listen to streams for all their data. Initially it was because Widow could oneshot her with a bodyshot, and quickscope everyone else so well you couldn't touch her. Now that nerfs hit Widow, and all the other DPS favorites, people are discovering just how much damage she does and how much skill it takes just to tag her.

She's harder to follow than Genji, and most projectile heroes can't touch her. She's gonna require a nerf soon, but it'll be hard with her kit the way it is.

The only nerf I could see working at all is increasing her blink CD or reducing her damage by 1. Those might even break her tbh. She is balanced on a razor edge. I honestly think she's balanced. A good Tracer is a force, but it is hard to get to that level.

Like with all fighting games that are more old they never get changed with buffs or nerfs. take the very first Super Smash Bros game series, some of the oldest games can't be changed mostly due to hardware limitations and other things but dispite that their is still a very active tier list for it with everyone still going up or down. With that being said tracer getting "buffs" as others get nerfed as for phara she had so little changed but is now considered a deadly thing to go against and with all the buffs bastion got he is still considered bad by most. It simply comes down to the people that play the game, if one person is good at a hero, the hero would be considered as op even if they can't properly get kills with them.

All heroes are affected by changes to other heroes. Even if nothing changed, players would adapt new strategies and tactics that would cause the balance of the game to shift.

If you look back to a few months ago, a lot of people were demanding Reinhardt nerfs because he was a "must pick" hero in the meta. At that time, Winston was literally the least played hero. Fast forward to today, and we're seeing Winston as the dominant tank choice in the tournament scene (along with D.Va) and Reinhardt's play time has dropped significantly.

Short of the adjustment to Earthshatter (not intended as a huge balance nerf but rather more of a "that doesn't seem right" fix), we did not touch Reinhardt's balance. But changes to other heroes and changes to the "accepted" strategy of how the game should be played at a meta level has changed which tanks are perceived to be "right" or "wrong" to play.

You can make a similar argument about Zenyatta's increased play time. Zen's new prevalence is due to adjustments to other heroes -- not Zen himself -- as well as a shifting meta.

So Tracer's balance -- beyond the obvious tuning knobs that we have -- is greatly affected by the balance of other heroes as well as the "perception" of how good she is at any one time.

It's always fun to study how people innovate to "break" a meta. In the NHL in the 90's teams developed an overly defensive strategy (think 3 tank meta) called "The Trap" which was later evolved into "the Left Wing Lock". Teams like New Jersey and Detroit won championships using these methods. Eventually, the NHL had to make rule changes to "change the meta".

There was also an example of a contestant on Jeopardy playing the game differently that caused the "meta" to break:

All heroes are affected by changes to other heroes. Even if nothing changed, players would adapt new strategies and tactics that would cause the balance of the game to shift.

If you look back to a few months ago, a lot of people were demanding Reinhardt nerfs because he was a "must pick" hero in the meta. At that time, Winston was literally the least played hero. Fast forward to today, and we're seeing Winston as the dominant tank choice in the tournament scene (along with D.Va) and Reinhardt's play time has dropped significantly.

Short of the adjustment to Earthshatter (not intended as a huge balance nerf but rather more of a "that doesn't seem right" fix), we did not touch Reinhardt's balance. But changes to other heroes and changes to the "accepted" strategy of how the game should be played at a meta level has changed which tanks are perceived to be "right" or "wrong" to play.

You can make a similar argument about Zenyatta's increased play time. Zen's new prevalence is due to adjustments to other heroes -- not Zen himself -- as well as a shifting meta.

So Tracer's balance -- beyond the obvious tuning knobs that we have -- is greatly affected by the balance of other heroes as well as the "perception" of how good she is at any one time.

It's always fun to study how people innovate to "break" a meta. In the NHL in the 90's teams developed an overly defensive strategy (think 3 tank meta) called "The Trap" which was later evolved into "the Left Wing Lock". Teams like New Jersey and Detroit won championships using these methods. Eventually, the NHL had to make rule changes to "change the meta".

There was also an example of a contestant on Jeopardy playing the game differently that caused the "meta" to break:

I think a lot of people can agree on that statement. Pharah got strong due to the nerfs to her counters, and Tracer got strong due to her counters, namely Roadhog and McCree, went out of meta/got nerfed.

All heroes are affected by changes to other heroes. Even if nothing changed, players would adapt new strategies and tactics that would cause the balance of the game to shift.

If you look back to a few months ago, a lot of people were demanding Reinhardt nerfs because he was a "must pick" hero in the meta. At that time, Winston was literally the least played hero. Fast forward to today, and we're seeing Winston as the dominant tank choice in the tournament scene (along with D.Va) and Reinhardt's play time has dropped significantly.

Short of the adjustment to Earthshatter (not intended as a huge balance nerf but rather more of a "that doesn't seem right" fix), we did not touch Reinhardt's balance. But changes to other heroes and changes to the "accepted" strategy of how the game should be played at a meta level has changed which tanks are perceived to be "right" or "wrong" to play.

You can make a similar argument about Zenyatta's increased play time. Zen's new prevalence is due to adjustments to other heroes -- not Zen himself -- as well as a shifting meta.

So Tracer's balance -- beyond the obvious tuning knobs that we have -- is greatly affected by the balance of other heroes as well as the "perception" of how good she is at any one time.

It's always fun to study how people innovate to "break" a meta. In the NHL in the 90's teams developed an overly defensive strategy (think 3 tank meta) called "The Trap" which was later evolved into "the Left Wing Lock". Teams like New Jersey and Detroit won championships using these methods. Eventually, the NHL had to make rule changes to "change the meta".

There was also an example of a contestant on Jeopardy playing the game differently that caused the "meta" to break:

http://kotaku.com/meet-the-man-who-hacked-jeopardy-1516792430

Fun stuff.

Yet Roadhog gets the nerf when it's the only hero that might stand a chance against the Winston/DVA dive, hmm.